Simon and his fellow researchers determined that neurons located in alligators' nucleus laminaris (an area of the auditory brainstem whose computations can determine the spatial origin of a sound) act as coincidence detectors to discriminate interaural time differences using algorithms similar to those used by birds, rather than those used by other reptiles. The results argue that these similarities between birds and crocodiles may be general properties of all archosaurs, a larger group that include birds, crocodilians, and dinosaurs.